Faceoff
by RapunzelK
Summary: Luigi and Pavi have a Largo style heart-to-heart.
1. Chapter 1

"Pavi?"

He froze, half-hunched at her vanity, the contents of her makeup box spread out before him.

"The hell are you doing?"

"C-c-c-ar-m-mela!" he tripped over the consonants like a cold car engine, as if his vocal cords were unwilling to turn over. "I c-c-c-can exp-exp-exp…" the syllable was practically spit, the ending 'p' culminating in little more than a frantic splutter.

"…Pavi?" Reaching, she flicked on the lights and blinked not only at the sudden brightness, but at her brother's reaction. He curled in on himself, lowering his head so that his reflection would not show. Stepping across the deep carpet, she noticed with mild alarm that his clothes were dirty and rumpled, powdery white fingerprints on his trousers, greasy black smudges on his shirt. Little beads of red sprinkled the glossy surface of her vanity. Another dripped to the surface and splashed minutely, sending tiny ruby drops flying.

"Did something happen?"

He would neither face her nor answer her. Instead he turned away, hair still obscuring his face, hands fisted on the vanity top; a filthy tissue in one, her cover-up clutched in the other. Aside from a few sticks of lip liner grouped with her eyeliner, he has shoved the various items into little piles according to use. The lipstick and eye shadow had remained otherwise untouched, but the cover up, foundation, and concealer were all open. She boggled briefly that he should know one from the other, and then why he might want to use them? Another drip onto the table top. A sniff. …was he crying?

"Pavi?" she reached and laid a hand on one arm. Reluctantly, he unbent his back and raised his head. Carmela gasped, one hand automatically moving to cover her mouth.

"Oh Pavi…"

He hung his head, rivulets of red running down his chin and into his collar. Half his face was seared an angry red, the skin shriveled and black as if it had been melted. The other half oozed blood from many deep slashes, one of which seemed to penetrate to his teeth.

He said nothing, only pleaded with his eyes: _Help me__._

"Sit down," she told him. Pavi did as instructed while Carmela went to the bathroom to fetch a cold wash cloth. Not that she knew all that much about first-aid, but it was what the nannies had done whenever she scraped a knee or an elbow. She had an uncomfortable feeling that Pavi was going to need a bit more. As an afterthought she grabbed one of the bathroom towels too. He was no doubt leaving a mess on the carpet.

Pavi sat hunched miserably on the spindly little Queen Anne chair while Amber did her best to clean up his pathetic attempts at hiding the damage to his face.

"What happened?" she asked, more interested in how he'd gotten hurt than any associated scandal.

"_Got in a fight._" he told her stiffly, lapsing into Italian since he clearly didn't possess enough English at the moment.

"_Who with?_"

"_I won._" There was an odd sense if finality to those two syllables.

"_That's not what I asked._"

"_I didn't kill him._"

"_Again, not what I asked, dumbshit. Who did you not kill?_"

To this he said nothing. Pavi's silence could be a powerful weapon and if he chose to retreat into muteness, there was no siege she could launch that would loosen his tongue. Well, there was, but now hardly seemed the time. The gore was beginning to make her queasy. The blood in and of itself was not a problem, she'd seen enough barcoded organs floating placidly in jars to be thoroughly desensitized. Perhaps it was the fact that this mutilated bit of humanity was her _brother_ that was making her stomach knot and clench uncomfortably. The burned side wasn't so bad; it was almost a solid lump of charcoal. The flaps of skin and muscle, however, were making it hard to concentrate.

"_You should have one of the surGENs deal with this,_" she told him, "_I'm not a goddamned nurse._" Panic instead of derision colored her voice and Pavi looked dazedly up at her. Evidently the blood'n'guts were getting to him too; beneath the layer of dirt and coagulation, he had gone quite pale.

"_I'm calling dad,_" she told him, but her arm stopped in mid-reach, arrested by his words.

"_What the hell for?_"

"_You're hurt._"

"_So call a GENtern or a surGEN or something. All dad will do is get angry._"

He had a point.

"_All right. I'll call Nathan, then._"

"_Fine_."

Something occurred to her as she hunted through the speed dial list.

"_Why would dad get angry? Wouldn't he be more upset __someone rearranged your face__?_"

Pavi gave a derisive snort, quickly moving the now saturated washcloth to cover his nose so as not to spray Carmela's vanity with any more blood.

"_Just call._"

Normally he wasn't this stubborn. His constant companions the GENterns got only 'The Pavi' and his compliments and advances. But to Carmela he would speak freely, much more freely to her than to anyone else. They told each other everything; gossip, fashion, the details of their latest conquests. Sometimes he felt more like an older sister than a second elder brother. Then it occurred to her:

"...was it Luigi?"

Silence.

"Pavi?"

He wouldn't look at her.

"Paviche Largo, did you get into a fight with Luigi? Did he do this to you?" Just as Pavi defaulted to Italian, Carmela preferred English in a time of crisis.

"_Luigi isn't part of this._"

If it was one thing Pavi didn't like to do, it was lie to his little sister, and Carmela knew it. Angry tears had begun welling up in her eyes, though she couldn't decide at whom the sudden outrage was directed. Luigi _had_ done it, that much he couldn't deny, thus the half-truth. Furiously, she stabbed the correct button on her cell phone. Best not to use the house line for something like this.

"I'm calling him next."

"_Don't bother._ _He's probably already down there._"

'There' meaning with a surGEN. A small and tinny 'hello?' emitted from Carmela's phone but she ignored it for the moment. Instead she stared at her brother, not sure what to think or feel. He must have felt her eyes on him for he looked up and offered her a rather deformed smile.

"_I told you didn't kill him._"

"What _did_ you do to him?"

The only slightly self-satisfied grin split his lip as well as much of the coagulated tissue, forming fresh rivulets of dark blood.

"_Broke his nose._"

"Oh. Well. If that's all." It probably wasn't, but knowing Pavi, it was likely the worst of it. She returned her attention to the phone and found Nathan mercifully still on the line. After giving him the Cliffs Notes version, she returned her attention to Pavi. He looked as if a light breeze might knock him off the chair, such was the limpness in his posture and the waxen color of his face beneath the goo and scarring.

"What the _hell_ were you two fighting about anyway?" she asked, snapping the phone shut and tossing it back into her purse.

A sigh that seemed to utilize all the oxygen in the room. "_You'd laugh if I told you._"

"No I wouldn't. And you _are_ going to tell me."

"_Not now sister, please._"

To be fair, he really didn't look up to the task. She half expected him to slide off the chair and splatter the carpet with blood.

"All right. But you're telling me later. Promise?"

"_Promise_."


	2. The Other Cheek

As a child, Paviche Largo had never truly gotten along with his older brother. Like everything else, teasing and sibling rivalry had been taken to the extreme, and Pavi had therefore learned at a very early age that the best method of dealing with his brother was to stay out of his way. If that failed, you never rose to his provocations and above all, you never, _ever_ cried.

Pavi was crying now. Rather, he felt he should be crying. Instead, he continued to stand there staring rather blankly at the aftermath: three women lay sprawled in the alley way, their blood giving the rough and broken asphalt a mirror-like glister in the dim streetlight. The one girl he thought he'd seen somewhere before, the blond he didn't recognize at all, but the brunette slumped atop a packing crate… Her, he knew.

"Maria…" The word sounded small and helpless and it took him a moment to realize he was the one who'd spoken.

Less than an hour ago she had been alive and laughing, part of the mass of the club. She hadn't come with him, however, she'd come with Luigi. One of the myriad of clerical staff, Luigi had probably run into her at their father's office, but Pavi knew her best as the head chef's daughter. Mario was going to have someone's balls tonight, though at this point, he'd have to arm wrestle Paviche for the honors.

Things had started out well enough, but there was a fine art to _not_ pissing off Luigi. Depending on his mood, anything or nothing could set him off and then there were dead servers, or dead GENterns, or dead groupies, and it was very, very messy (on several levels) for everyone involved. Pavi was only glad that the focus of that unpredictable wrath was no longer directed at him.

There were moments when Pavi genuinely liked his elder sibling; especially now that they were more or less on the same plane of maturity. Luigi could be the warm and charming big brother when he felt like it, and the evening had gone reasonably well, all things considered. Amber, as usual, had disappeared earlier in the evening of clubs and cabarets, but he and Luigi had a few hours left of carousing. They had all gone out clubbing together, though 'together' generally meant being in the same building at the same time. Amber went off with her friends, Pavi with his, and Luigi with his own modest entourage. Modest being about four or five people; Amber generally trailed a baker's dozen of hangers-on and Pavi didn't usually bother to count all the members of his personal party.

There had been a lot of mingling of groupies that night, and Pavi and Luigi's entourages seemed to surge back and forth like the surf outside. He had seen Maria's face here and there, amid the crowd, and had thought nothing of it at the time. After all, he hadn't gone out for a night on the town in search of intellectual conversation. Maria was not one of the GENterns- a unique breed in and of themselves- or one of the countless faceless GENECO employees, she was first and foremost- to Pavi anyway- Mario's daughter. And Mario was one of few people who garnered Paviche Largo's utmost respect.

It was therefore something of shock, when, having snuck away from most of his party for a brief intimate moment with a charming young lady- Rebecca, or maybe Rachel, he thought her name was- that he noticed over her bare shoulder the mess of bodies strewn across the back alley miscellanea. Few things could stop a Largo in heat, but any further thoughts of cuddling evaporated as he stared stupidly and Rebecca-something asked him what was wrong. All the incorrect parts of him had gone rigid, and felt frozen and heavy instead of racing with heat and excitement. What's-her-becca turned and shrieked at the sight, recovering only enough to state that she was calling the cops and then make a hasty exit.

Pavi just stood there for a moment longer, unsure if he was really seeing the world as it truly existed. As the son of Rotti Largo and brother to Luigi, Pavi was no stranger to disease, death, and violence. Indeed no one was exempt from that knowledge these days. However, despite watching people be repoed or seeing Luigi quite literally rip some GENtern a new one, it had never really registered. There would be a new one to fill the space tomorrow and so he never worried about it. Those people were human, certainly, but they were not important to him. He didn't know their faces or their names, if they had families- children, spouses, pets. They weren't real to him; they were replaceable, expendable, like an army of hundreds of faceless, identical ants.

Life was cheap, except when the loss meant something to you.

Maria had been beautiful, still was in fact. There was a deep rent in the middle of her cocktail dress that penetrated all the way to the other side. Otherwise, she looked as if she had simply passed out after drinking too much. Unlike her father, he skin was pale, though she had his dark and curly hair. She was pretty in her way, if not as exotic as the women who ran with Amber and Luigi and himself. He had teased and charmed her like all the others, but because of the head chef, he'd taken a few extra precautions. Although determined to have his cake and eat it too, the round-about wooing found Pavi taking a genuine interest in her life. He was rewarded, eventually, with success but strangely enough found himself wanting seconds, and not simply of her body.

He stood there for a moment, looking at her, waiting for the world to please make sense. In the dim light he noticed a small, black line just in front of one ear. Reaching, he touched it and discovered the end of a GENECO barcode tag almost completely hidden by the edge of her hairline. Vaguely, he recalled her mentioning something about melanoma once, and now that he thought about it, she was missing the rather fetching beauty mark she'd once had about an inch over from the corner of her mouth. A new face, then. Once her body was collected, the GENECO parts would be removed- face and all- cleaned, and resold. This simply would not do.

Digging out a pair of gloves earlier borrowed from a GENtern and his pocket knife, Pavi watched with detached interest as his hands deftly, gently peeled the face away. It came off with only mild resistance, indicating the surgery to have been quite recent. With any luck she still had plenty of Zydrate in her system and therefore hadn't minded much when the blade pierced her. A brief flicker of light caught his attention and he looked up, scanning the half-light for the source but found none. The blond he didn't know spooked him briefly as her head suddenly lolled to one side. Kneeling, he double checked just to make sure. Dead as a doornail. Probably just gravity taking advantage of limp muscles. Dismissing the incident, his attention returned to the task at hand. Like a floppy, rubbery mask the face dripped in his hands. A convenient and decently clean plastic grocery bag scavenged from the trash kept it from staining his clothes as he carefully rolled up the face and tucked it into a pocket. The smallness of the plastic-wrapped bundle made his heart squeeze queerly. Never mind. Her face was technically his, anyway. At least he would have something to remember her by.

Tossing the gloves into one of the many trash cans, Pavi had to take a moment and remember why exactly he was in a dark alley full of bodies in the middle of the night. Piece by piece it came back to him and he realized that he really ought to return to the club before Rebecca-or-other's policemen showed up. He only stayed long enough to round up most of his entourage and proceed to the next club on the strip. Luigi was already there, looking only mildly rumpled and in a different shirt. Something at the bottom of Pavi's stomach went cold.

"Lose your shirt again, brother?" he quipped, draping himself over a random female partygoer who seemed only to happy to act as a prop.

Luigi rolled his eyes and knocked back a mouthful of alcohol. "Dumb fucks, all of 'em."

"Might-a the Pavi have a word later?"

His brother didn't answer in words, only cocked an eyebrow and nodded, suspecting but saying nothing.

"See you then, _fratello_!" Pavi chirruped and flounced off, inwardly trying to think of just what the hell he _did_ want to say to Luigi.


	3. Face to Face

The text he'd left had simply said "kitchen" and Pavi half wondered if Luigi even knew where it was? While not a chef himself, he'd been plaguing the cooks for ages, creating a space for himself within their world. This was where Pavi felt most at home, most comfortable. This was his turf and he wanted that advantage for once. In the hours between midnight and 5AM, the usual controlled chaos of the kitchen gave way to darkness as cool and silent as the catacombed graveyards. Perhaps that was waxing a bit melodramatic, but Pavi was feeling rather Gothic with Maria's face still rolled up in his pocket. It felt strange to be carrying a little piece of her with him like that.

Luigi wandered in and spotted his brother almost immediately.

"So?" he demanded. More than a little drunk, Luigi's temper was probably more volatile than Pavi was usually willing to risk. However, drink and anger fueling his own ill humor, Pavi decided to forego any of the usual pretenses.

"_Did you kill her?_" he asked in Italian, choosing the language as well as the location for what was likely to escalate into more than just a verbal confrontation.

Luigi looked confused. "'Her' who?"

"_Maria. Maria Fratelli. The chef's daughter. One of father's bookkeepers. Recently had her face done. Did. You. Kill. Her?_"

"The hell does it matter to you?" Luigi groused, tired as well as drunk. "Bitch asked for it."

Pavi rather doubted that. "_It matters because I knew her._"

"Pavi, you 'know' just about everyone in the city. The fuck does one dead cunt matter to you? Did I get to her before you did? Is that it?"

"_No_," and Pavi surprised himself as the word came out in a low growl. "i_I assure you I got there in plenty of time, brother_," and this time the word fairly oozed contempt. "_Who got there first is not the point._"

"The hell it isn't," Luigi scoffed. "Haven't you got enough GENterns to keep you company? Get the fuck over yourself."

The reflection of his own face in the shiny stainless steel behind the stove proved that he was even more surprised than Luigi at the vicious slap across his brother's face. Pavi could feel rage vibrating in every nerve, making his clenched fists tremble at his sides. Hot, stinging tears of rage and bereavement spilled from his eyes.

"_She was NOT just anyone, asshole! She wasn't some GENtern or one of father's lackeys! She was Maria! She was my FRIEND!_"

It took Luigi a moment to process what on earth had just happened. Pavi wasn't generally one to pick a fight, much less throw the opening punch.

"God you are such a fucking crybaby! Spare me your emo tears!" He followed it up with a fist aimed at Pavi's jaw, but the younger Largo was ready for it and ducked with the awkward grace that only years of practice could bring. Normally he'd let Luigi hit him because if he did, the fight would be over faster and Luigi would have less time to get creative. Tonight, however, Pavi had some anger of his own to burn.

He ducked and dodged around stainless steel counters and wood chopping blocks, waiting for an opening. Luigi wasn't as fast, but was nearly as tall, and far stronger than his younger sibling, and Pavi knew it. Further, there was an impressive array of knives hanging from magnetic strips along the walls. It was only a matter of time before Luigi grabbed one out of sheer murderous reflex and tried to put it to use.

No sooner had the thought occurred to Pavi than Luigi grabbed at random from the nearby rack. _Santoku_, Pavi identified. _Japanese. Excellent all-purpose chopper_. If he didn't move quickly, Luigi was going to chop off something not only important but also expensive to replace. He was so busy dodging the dimpled blade that he didn't realize he'd been backed against the enormous gas stove. Luigi slashed at him, half aiming, half crazed with rage. Pavi dodged, but there wasn't much room to do so and the blade caught him across the cheek. A cold line of pain streaked across his muscles as blood began to spill, but he ignored it.

"You can't fucking SHARE?!" Luigi roared, slashing again as Pavi did his best to twist out of reach. "If you were anyone else's brother you'd get nothing BUT hand-me-downs! Be fucking glad I could care less about all your stupid GENterns!"

"It wasn't ABOUT fucking!" Pavi snapped out of pure knee-jerk reflex. This struck Luigi harder than any physical counter attack and the two seconds he stood staring in completely stunned silence gave Pavi much needed time to at least find himself a bit more room to move.

"Like hell!" he crowed between peals of hysterical laughter. "Pavi, if it can't be fucked you aren't interested!"

Galling as it was, he had a point.

"Okay, f-fine, but it wasn't JUST a-b-bout that!" Dammit, there was the stutter again. Luigi had the irritating knack of bringing it to the surface.

"So, what? You sought her out for the mental stimulation? I've heard your foreplay conversations, hardly fucking Shakespeare," Luigi growled, lunging and catching Pavi by the collar. Because of the santoku pressed against his cheek, wrenching out of his brother's grip was proving difficult.

"I take a lot of shit, kid, but don't think I'll put up with the holier-than-thou bullshit from the likes of you."

There wasn't time enough to wrench away as Luigi's hand jumped from Pavi's collar to his wrist, jerking the arm painfully up and back into the region of Pavi's shoulders. Twisting the captured limb further still, Luigi bent his brother over the stove until Pavi's face was resting on the cold burners. Struggling was yet an option, but a foolish and dangerous one. Half-lying on the stove like this his knees were precariously close to the knobs that controlled the gas flow. And the automatic starter.

"Luigi, let GO," Pavi grunted, scrunching his eyes closed in order to avoid getting gouged by the blunted cast iron trivets. Luigi said nothing, only drew the knife across his brother's cheek again, slicing another thin red line into his flesh. Swallowing the scream and lump in his throat together nearly choked him, but Pavi managed it. While he didn't _think_ Luigi would intentionally kill him, it was best not to encourage him.

The knife gouged deeper into his skin, a sickly scraping sound made him wonder if Luigi had scratched his teeth? The thought was revolting enough to twist his stomach into such a knot that his legs jerked along with it. Pavi choked a second time as the stench of propane blasted into his nostrils. His struggling interrupted the stroke of the knife, carving an uneven rent in his cheek that skirted dangerously close to his eye.

"Hold STILL," Luigi ordered through clenched teeth and forcing a knee into Pavi's groin. This triggered another reflexive jerk of the knees and Pavi barely managed to bite back a scream as the propane flared into cerulean life. Although the fire might be small, Pavi's head large enough to block the flicker of the little blue flames, it still burned bright and hot and Pavi felt as if he could feel each individual skin cell sizzle and die as his makeup and moisturizer ignited.

"You enjoying this now?" Pavi could hear the leer in those words as his breathing became quick and labored with pain.

"G-get the f-f-fuck off me!" The words were rasped in little more than a whisper, constricted to keep from screaming.

"I'm not done." The knee pressed harder, forcing Pavi's own knees against the oven a second time. The gas flared and Luigi jumped at the sudden surge of flame.

"The fuck?!"

It was enough. Lurching backwards, Pavi made a wild grab over the stove and felt his fingers close around something cold and smooth. Luigi stumbled back at the sudden reverse of weight and dropped abruptly to the floor with a resounding "CLANG".

The unexpected noise alerted Pavi to the improvised weapon still vibrating in his hand: Mario's favorite stainless steel skillet. The pan was huge, nearly as large as a pizza tray and almost too heavy to wield with one hand. Holding it up as if it were one of his hand mirrors, Pavi gaped at the mangled remains of his own reflection. Shit. His face was still burning.

Stumbling to the big three-basin wash sink he turned on the water and stuck his head under. The tortured yell mingled with the hiss of cold water on burned flesh; a sudden rush of bile and regurgitated alcohol silencing the noise before Pavi could scrape together the necessary brain cells to bite the pain back himself. God, Mario was going to kill him later. At least this was the wash-up sink and not the one used for food. Grabbing blindly for one of the many dingy white tea towels stacked on the shelf, Pavi pulled one down and wiped the water out of his eyes before gingerly pressing it against his lacerated cheek. The towel would only stick to the burned side, and so he left it for the time being.

It took him a few shaky false starts to shut off the stove, but once the burners had all gone cool and dark, Pavi knelt to examine his brother, vaguely hoping that he hadn't killed him. Luigi's nose was streaming scarlet, clearly broken and smashed almost completely flat. He'd tried to fight back a few times early on, but Luigi had been considerably bigger back then. This was the first time he'd fought with Luigi and won. He wasn't going to be amused when he came to (Pavi was fairly certain that he would), so Pavi left the frying pan where it was, still clutched in his fingers as if they'd been forged together. After a few tense minutes and some mildly frantic prodding from Pavi, Luigi blinked himself awake and groggily sat up.

"The fuck?" he gargled, blood spilling from his mouth all over his shirt. Pavi said nothing, only crouched silently with the skillet resting across his knees like a mace. The handle beneath his fingers was as familiar to Pavi as the hilts of Luigi's collection of knives were to him. This was something he knew how to wield. He was not defenseless. And he was not going to be bullied. Watching his brother's face, Luigi seemed to glean this from Pavi's charred expression.

"You tryin' to kill me?" Luigi demanded, retching yet more blood.

"We you trying to k-k-kill _me_?" It was only fair. Luigi had the grace to pause and avert his eyes for a moment.

"No," he admitted. "You know how I get."

"I know." And he was sick of hearing that excuse. Still, the man was sorry, and it was the closest thing to an apology Luigi could give. Deciding he needed it more, Pavi removed the towel from his own face and offered it to his brother.

"Thanks," Luigi replied, leaning forward and hacking blood into the stained terrycloth. His rage had passed for the moment, and so had Pavi's. Feeling suddenly tired, Pavi leaned back on his heels and plunked to the floor. His face throbbed, the many wounds leeching trails of blood that trickled down his neck and into his shirt. These were secondary details, however, drowned out by the subtle crinkle of the plastic grocery bag rolled up in his pocket.

"You know even though she was the master chef's daughter she couldn't boil water?" he stated, distantly amazed at the even clarity of his own voice. "She was better with numbers than she was in the kitchen. She hated sweets; she liked salty stuff- peanuts, pretzels, that kind of thing. She liked coffee but not espressos. At one time she had wanted to be a teacher…"

Luigi looked up, the towel still pressed to his streaming nose. Behind the blood and the rising bruises from the shattered bone, something like sympathy flickered in his eyes.

"She was one of the few people who would speak Italian to me." That last one alone had earned her a special place in Pavi's mind. "Now she won't speak to anyone again; not Italian, not English, not anything ever at all."

They sat there; Luigi staring at his brother's mangled face, Pavi staring straight ahead at nothing. Spitting blood onto the floor, Luigi put into words what had risen in his mind.

"You really liked her, didn't you."

"I did."

A long pause. "…I'm sorry."

Pavi shrugged and shook his head slightly. "It happens."

"Yeah," Luigi agreed, assisting Pavi in his contemplation of nothing, "it does."

The two of them sat on the floor, bleeding, not talking. Pavi seemingly too miserable to do anything else, and until his nose clotted at least in part, Luigi didn't feel much like moving either. Words he'd heard before echoed inside his head, and he nearly blurted them to Pavi. Maybe it was the blood still coursing down his face, maybe the soggy towel, but they never made it past his lips. Instead he shifted the towel and offered a hand to his younger brother. It took a moment for Pavi to notice the outstretched palm hovering above his lap, and another minute to correctly interpret what it was there for. There was no deception in Luigi's eyes, only an unspoken question:

_Truce?_

Slowly, Pavi lifted his own arm and grasped the hand, giving a brief, firm shake.

_Truce_.


End file.
